#BENGHAZI: More Focus On ‘Talking Points’

Six months later, the American people still are no closer to learning the truth of what happened in Benghazi. The cover-up continues.The entire cast of characters has been in for hearings and given testimony – everyone except the survivors, which have been shuffled around and kept hidden by this administration who has apparently interviewed the survivors all on their own. Convenient.

Quick Recap:

DNI didn’t know anything about the changed talking points either. Clapper and Morrell were a tag team of useless information and shrugs. Controversy still hovers over Clapper, who seems to change his mind a lot on if he was involved or not. Clapper tried to chuck his pal Petraeus under the bus, but it didn’t work. If push comes to shove, now with Clinton out of the picture, if a head is going to roll it will likely be Clapper’s.

The CIA said they weren’t responsible. They didn’t change any talking points. Petraeus’ testimony said it was assessed as a terrorist attack from the start; no idea who changed the talking points or who wanted to implement a YouTube video protest as an excuse.

The FBI said they didn’t change the talking points. They didn’t know anything despite having sent a unit to the crime scene in Benghazi. It’s clear they can’t even keep track of suspects either.

The Pentagon – also not responsible, even though their timelines shows it took 19 hours to respond.

The State Department says they weren’t responsible and Hillary Clinton says she didn’t speak to anyone else that night as the attacks went on. She shook her little fist and yelled in her testimony, “what difference does it make?!” when asked about the video excuse. Theatrics and non-answers followed. When finished her campaign debts were paid off by the DNC and she retired. Job done, pay off received.

The President himself said he wasn’t responsible either. Actually, he sent Leon Panetta out to tell everyone that he wasn’t responsible and had nothing to do with the attacks that night. He was in bed or something, resting up to hit Vegas the next day.

No one was talking responsibility for anything. The only entity who has not testified is the White Houseitself. The only thing the White House wants to say is:

White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said only one minor change was made by the Oval Office.

“The only edit that was made by the White House and also by the State Department was to change the word ‘consulate’ to the word ‘diplomatic facility,’ since the facility in Benghazi was not formally a consulate,” Rhodes told reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One.

“We were provided with points by the intelligence community that represented their assessment. The only edit made by the White House was the factual edit about how to refer to the facility,” Rhodes also said. (Fox News)

And we’re full circle with the talking points hot potato. Of course, remember, this administration would rather be dodging talking points than answering why the Commander-in-Chief was absent as four Americans were murdered by terrorists. Paging Rand Paul!

Flash Forward to this week:

The stonewalling on Benghazi had reached a melting point. So, after multiple members of the Senate threatened to hold up the Brennan nomination unless they received the documents on Benghazi they have requested for months, the White House sent some paperwork over.

Prior to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s vote on CIA director nominee John Brennan to move to a full Senate vote, the Obama administration provided much of the information the Senate Intelligence Committee had been requesting for five months regarding the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S consulate in Benghazi, Libya, CBS News has learned. The documents are voluminous and both Republicans and Democrats on the committee had the opportunity to review them.

Documents provided include emails regarding “who changed the Benghazi talking points” and many communications between officials in Libya and Washington, D.C., leading up to and during the attack.

Regarding the talking points: one source who reviewed the documents said removal of the word “al Qaeda” from the talking points was initiated, at least in part, by one of the “press shops.” The source said press officers from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the White House and the FBI were “looped in” from the start and that some of them expressed concerns in writing that the media would ask follow up questions if certain words or phrases were used. The source added that the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and then-Deputy CIA Director Michael Morell were included in these emails.

When asked whether Clapper and Morell misled Congress when they didn’t disclose who changed the talking points (because they knew), one source said “the exact right question wasn’t asked.”

A DNI spokesman acknowledged that press officers from his agency and other agencies were looped in and took part in the talking points exchanges, but he said “no press officers suggested the edits of the specific words ‘al Qaeda.'”

“People who could make such edits were subject matter experts,” the spokesman said. He declined to say who those people were or what other edits the press officers may have suggested. The spokesman added that Clapper “received the talking points after coordination among the press officers and other groups in the intelligence community.”

The documents viewed by the intelligence committee members indicated numerous other changes were made to the talking points, including removal of certain references to an “attack.”

No one asked the ‘exact right question’.

It’s clear from that statement, that no one will be getting to the bottom of this with a hearing. This administration and every single department are playing games. It’s independent counsel time.

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About The Author

LadyLiberty1885 (A.P. Dillon) is a Conservative minded mother and wife living in the Triangle area of NC. Mrs. Dillon began writing in 2009 when she founded LadyLiberty1885. Her writing can also be found at Da Tech Guy and at Wizbang. Mrs. Dillon also write science fiction and children's novellas that are works in progress and unpublished as of yet.

If the admin had not had the ability to help these people who were murdered they wouldn’t have to lie constantly about it. I don’t need transparency to see through their bs. You don’t cover up when you have nothing to hide.

Brucehenry

Hey Jim, I think I may have found the gremlin who follows us, downvoting everything I post immediately and upvoting everything you post immediately.

jim_m

Really?

I thought is was just me down voting all of your posts and you up voting all of mine.

Brucehenry

Oh…….. Never mind.

MartinLandauCalrissian

The truth is our stealth Muslim president helped his pals in Jihadland kill a few Americans and enjoyed the effort immensely. Now he wants to hide as much from the public as possible.

Brucehenry

Your credibility is helped immensely with remarks like this, Marty. You should keep this up. Stand Up For What You Believe, there, Bub.

And you are so stupid you don’t see the smiley. It was a joke, asswipe.

Brucehenry

Oh, pardon me, my mistake. It was so totally in character for you, judging by previous comments, that I did, indeed, miss the little smiley thingie.

Ooops. Please forgive me.

MartinLandauCalrissian

I will state unequivocally that I don’t actually think Obama is a stealth Muslim.

Brucehenry

But you DO actually think he enjoyed the effort of helping his pals in Jihadland kill a few Americans?

Just F-ing with ya, Marty.

jim_m

I think obama does view Americans as expendable and their lives to be disposed of at his convenience. He continually complains about not being king or emperor but he treats us like his subjects anyway.

As I have said before, obama does not view people as individuals. Only by membership in a group does a person become significant or of any worth. The deaths of 4 individuals truly is “suboptimal” but not something to really be concerned about from his viewpoint.

fustian24

While I’m more or less a mutt, the largest part of me is probably Irish. Only been there once for a couple of days, and I really don’t know that much about Ireland, but I can tell you if they got into some kind of war with almost anyone but us, I would have a hard time not reflexively siding with them. Most people are funny that way.

I think it is not the slightest bit unreasonable to think that Obama feels the same thing about Islam. He doesn’t have to be Muslim to identify with them which I think he does. His father was a muslim and he was raised partly in a madrasah. Off the record comments he made while beginning his political career support this notion.

At a time in which a significant section of that religion/ideology/political and legal system is at war with us, I’d feel a lot more comfortable with a President that is not conflicted in this way.

MartinLandauCalrissian

And you are so stupid you don’t see the smiley. It was a joke, asswipe.

GarandFan

Well there’s an easy answer, FIRE EVERYONE INVOLVED. Maybe when their job is at stake, heads will start talking.

914

we know the truth. Barack was running weapons to Syria and it backfired predictably. Barack lied Americans died.

Constitution First

What is it with Barry Hussein Obummer and his obsession with running guns to narco-terrorists and IslamoFascists? I think Barry actually likes guns, the lying part is just his DNA.

Daniel Greenfield tries to imagine the last moments in Benghazi. He writes, “We will…never know what was going through Christopher Stevens’ mind on September 11, 2012, as he battled the choking smoke, experiencing what so many New Yorkers had experienced on September 11, 2001. Like them, he was faced with a terrible dilemma, a choice between remaining in the fire and committing suicide by going outside.”

“…Stevens chose to remain inside and die rather than face the tender mercies of his attackers…The photos that have been released, along with claims by Libyan jihadists that they sexually assaulted his corpse, suggest that he made the right choice…perhaps in those final moments…Christopher Stevens finally understood the true horror of the Muslim world that he had fallen in love with as a Peace Corps volunteer.”http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/christopher-stevens-feeds-the-crocodile/2/

In the 1992 movie, “A Few Good Men,” Jack Nicholson, who plays the part of an arrogant US Marine officer is confronted in the courtroom by a determined attorney, played by Tom Cruise.

During a riveting exchange on the witness stand, the prosecutor demands, “I want the truth!”

The prosecutor is told, emphatically, “You can’t handle the truth!”

The truth is, every day that goes by shows us it was a mistake for the administration and ambassador Stevens to have helped in getting ride of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. Gaddafi might not have been a good cook, but he kept the pot from boiling over.

Americans can handle the truth that the terrorist attack on the US mission at Benghazi was not a spontaneous demonstration against a YouTube video. How do we square that audacious truth with the September 25 statements by Barack Obama at the United Nations?

Soon after the attack that killed ambassador Stevens, the president was adamant in his desire to find the truth. He claimed, “We will not waiver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done.” One has to wonder if after all the lies that have been told about the Incident at Benghazi that the president’s search for truth and justice will lead right back to him.http://abcnews.go.com/US/weeks-best-quotes/story?id=17246303 – 2

Contact me for my complete article on the betryal at Benghazi…

fustian24

I have to say that I’m stunned Obama is getting away with this. This is banana republic stuff. I remember reading about the Teapot Dome scandal and marveling that so many could get away with it for so long. I comforted myself that such a thing couldn’t happen in my time because we had an aggressive free press.

My bad.

I used to think that the only way we could have a chance at honest government any more was to vote in Republicans since the press simply will no longer hold Democrats accountable.

But it’s worse than that.

The press will simply destroy any Republican that is at all effective.

It’s pretty clear that “our press” is not on our side.

Why is there no hue and cry over the fact that the administration is hiding the survivors of the attack? This is mind-bendingly corrupt. No other word for it.

jai

Bloomberg reported how the Nation of Islam began forming blind funds to buy up the U.S. media and their parent companies immediately after claiming credit for 9-11 and swearing to “Destroy the American Infidel from within.” Then came the democracy hating Soros to buy up more. These are people who hate America and the American system. What else can we expect?

Constitution First

Do I hear a $500,000 opening bid?

jai

If course Obama is hiding. By providing the weapons, he is an accessory to murder.

I figure Stevens was supposed to survive the attack to become a hero easily slipped through the legislative approval process as Clinton’s replacement. After all, Stevens didn’t die of gunshot or explosion, but of smoke inhalation and he was taken to the hospital by the attackers, not those assigned to protect the embassy. Then there’s the Turkish visit immediately before the attack and the association of Obama and Stevens as members of Man’s Country in Chicago.